


fly the river

by orphan_account



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23389288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Richie thinks about the sewers under Derry, and the water rushing through the processing plants throughout the California desert to hydrate a city that shouldn’t be. Richie thinks about snakes in the scrub-lands, and the coyote he could hear at night when he stayed with his friend in San Gabriel Valley, and Richie thinks about that friend who is short, with dark hair and dark eyes, and how Richie had tried to kiss him once.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 3





	fly the river

**Author's Note:**

> [accompanying soundtrack](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Q8DrDkIM4PAgHn910RETi?si=R-PwLMKNQCKSCO6WLljYfQ)
> 
> title from 'fare thee well (dink's song)' from inside llewyn davies.

After Derry, and the clown, and the sewers, and Eddie, gone, Richie goes home. He waits around first, obviously. He watches Mike pack up his apartment above the library and take off in his rust colored car, hugging them all firmly to his chest and telling them all he’ll call and send photos from his road trip. Richie watches Bill fly off to finish his movie and hopefully save his marriage, and watches Beverly hire her lawyer, send divorce papers, and disappear with Ben. Richie watches them all and then he goes home.

Richie’s parents moved out to the suburbs outside of Chicago when Richie was in his twenties and they’re not close but they’re not distant either. Richie calls them when he remembers, and his mom emails when she sees him on Comedy Central, or when his cousins do something noteworthy, and sometimes Went texts him, normally something incomprehensible that Richie spends a couple hours looking at before the meaning gets to him. He wants to be close with his parents but he doesn’t know how, he can’t get over that last fatal secret held tight in his chest and what they’d do with it if they had it. Sometimes Richie wonders if they already know.

The house there isn’t home, but it isn’t not home either, all of Richie’s childhood belongings stored in the attic, his old bookshelf and desk in the guest bedroom, there are touches of him everywhere he looks. The couch where he had his first kiss back in Derry, the same silverware, the same plates. His mom looks smaller than he remembers but Richie leans down when he hugs her like he has since he turned fifteen and grew taller than her, and she kisses him on the head the same way she always has. 

He stays there a week or so, going through the boxes of his childhood things, looking for anything to hold onto. Photos, or drawings, or anything, anything physical he can touch, and know that it was real. Sometimes he tries asking his parents if they remember him, but their memories are a bit funny at the best of times, and it was so many years ago now, why would they remember one kid amongst many that RIchie played with. Sometimes Richie wonders if Derry magic ever really leaves. 

There’s nothing in the attic, save some old books with notes written in what looks like Eddie’s careful handwriting. He can’t tell if they’re his, but they feel like a body in a grave in Richie’s hands, so he packs it into his suitcase, hugs his parents goodbye and flies home to his empty apartment in L.A.

Sometimes when Richie wakes up he thinks about calling Eddie, thinks about Eddie’s phone crushed in the sewers under Neibolt, and tries not to think about Eddie crushed beneath Neibolt, his body rotting into nothing, no head stone to mark his passing. Sometimes he tries to comfort himself thinking about an archaeologist in the future finding Eddie’s bones and knowing he was there, marking his presence. Sometimes when Richie is lying in bed trying to fall asleep he thinks about Eddie’s voice, his accent slightly different from years away from Richie. Richie wonders if he’d even still talk to Eddie, if Eddie would still want to talk to him, if Eddie would say his name, and put his hand on his shoulder and tell him that he’s okay. 

There are no recordings of Eddie’s voice, none that Richie can find at least. No promotional videos for the firm he worked for, no home movies on Facebook or YouTube. Richie can’t bring himself to even try to contact Eddie’s wife. He read the obituary she wrote for him, and donated money to the charity she listed. Eddie never went to California, Richie doesn’t know how he knows that but he knows it, whether Eddie told him it in Derry or he made it up wholecloth, he knows Eddie has never stepped foot in his house, never seen Richie’s kitchen, the way the light tilts in from the streets at night and lights everything an uneasy yellow. If Eddie saw Richie’s apartment he’d probably tell Richie to move, so really it’s for the best that he’s not there to see it.

Richie misses the sound of Eddie yelling, the way it always sounded like affection. His manager calls him most days right now but Richie mostly lets the calls drop. He answers Bev when she calls, every now and then, if he’s sober and he thinks he can stomach it. He tells her he’s got shows lined up, tells her to come visit sometime, that he’s doing just fine. He tells Mike the same, and then he oohs and ahs at Mike’s photography from his roadtrip, because Mike deserves as much of Richie’s attention, even if most of Richie’s attention is focused on an empty space the shape of a man. 

Richie and Eddie’s birthdays were two days apart, Eddie’s first, then Richie’s, and it was always a fight, those two days where Eddie was older than Richie, and would use it for anything. Eddie would tell Richie that he knew better because he was older all year long, but Richie would only listen on Eddie’s birthday. Richie goes out and buys a vegan carrot cake cupcake, figures that’s probably healthy enough for Eddie. Honestly, Richie doesn’t know what gluten is, the cake may or not have it, but he sticks a candle in the frosting and lights it, sings happy birthday sitting on the floor in front of a cupcake and becomes deeply concerned about the levels of dust on his floor. By the time the candle burns out the wax has almost covered the entire cupcake and it’s totally inedible, so Richie calls out for Pizza and he eats that instead, and he tries not to think of what Eddie would say about that. He keeps his phone turned off, and he plays old music on his speakers all day to keep the house from feeling empty. 

On Richie’s birthday he calls Mike, and Beverly and Ben, and his agent, and he tells most of them that he loves them, and he thanks them all for thinking about him. Beverly and Ben show him pictures of Ben’s dog, who is now also Beverly’s dog, and Richie coos at the appropriate moments, and jokes at the appropriate moments, and acts entirely like a functioning adult. Mike shows Richie a lake somewhere in Illinois that Richie used to skip stones on when Richie visited his parents for the holidays and Richie pretends to not know where it is, and tells Mike that travelling suits him. Richie apologizes to his agent and agrees to start work on a new show, with Richie writing at least some of it, if not all. Richie is dressed, and clean, and he spends almost all of the day outside of bed, and he only thinks about Eddie once, which is pretty good for him. 

The day after his birthday Richie can’t get out of bed, and can only stare at the ceiling, thinking about the back of his closet, where Eddie’s suitcases are stashed, the ones he couldn’t bear to send back to Eddie’s widow like he should have, next to the suitcase with the books that he thinks could have been Eddie’s, maybe. He fell asleep in boxers and an old t-shirt, from the one year he spent at college before dropping out, and he stays in them all day, acutely aware of his skin, and his body and that he is alive and breathing where others are not. He thinks about the sewers under Derry, and the water rushing through the processing plants throughout the California desert to hydrate a city that shouldn’t be. Richie thinks about snakes in the scrublands, and the coyote he could hear at night when he stayed with his friend in San Gabriel Valley, and Richie thinks about that friend who is short, with dark hair and dark eyes, and how Richie had tried to kiss him once.

Richie thinks Eddie knew he loved him, the same way that Richie knows that Eddie loved them, loved all of them, the way the Losers’ love felt like a physical presence, like being known for the first time in decades. Richie doesn’t think Eddie knew that he was in love with him, but that doesn’t really matter if Eddie knew that Richie loved him, knew that Richie carried him in his chest with him, knew that Richie wouldn’t give up knowing Eddie for anything, knew that all of it was worth it. Eddie knew that Richie loved him, and Richie still loves him, will love him, ongoing, present tense.

The thing Richie knows about Eddie being dead is that he doesn’t know if these books were his but if they are, Eddie can have them back. Richie is just taking care of them for him, until he gets back. He’s just waiting to see him laugh at Richie again. “Eddie, you can have your books back,” Richie says, sitting on the floor in front of the suitcases he can’t bear to unpack. Richie knows he can’t hold onto them forever. 

Eddie can have them back.


End file.
